Advances in the sequencing of the mitochondrial genome of a giant land snail from Argentina

BELTRAMINO AA; VOGLER RE; SERNIOTTI EN; GUZMÁN LB; RUMI A; PESO JG

Foz do Iguaçu

Congreso; 2018 International Congress of Genetics; 2018

Sociedade Brasileira de Genética

In most metazoans, the mitochondrial genome consists of a double-stranded DNA molecule of12-20 kb, which contains 37 genes (13 coding for proteins, 2 rRNA and 22 tRNA). In recent years,the sequencing of animal mitochondrial genomes has accelerated, although very few completegenomes are available for South American gastropods. In this work, we present the advances inthe sequencing of the mitochondrial genome of the giant terrestrial snail Megalobulimuslorentzianus (Doering, 1876) (Gastropoda: Panpulmonata), endemic from South America. Thestudy material consisted of an adult specimen from Morteros, Córdoba, Argentina from which totalgenomic DNA was extracted by means of a standard CTAB protocol. For the sequencing of theM. lorentzianus mitogenome, a combination of three techniques was used: short PCR; long PCRand primer walking. Different combinations of 96 universal primers for pulmonate snails wereused, as well as specific primers designed for the species. DNA sequences were obtained asoverlapping fragments which were assembled as contigs. To date, about 90 % of themitochondrial genome was already sequenced, and the newly determined partial genomeconformed to the consensus gene order for the Stylommatophora. Once completed, themitogenome of M. lorentzianus would represent the first for land snails of Argentina; as well asthe fourth for South America among the Panpulmonata.